Metroland at the Metrocentre was a huge favourite with Tyneside families who flocked there for two decades.
Our main image shows work starting on the indoor funfair 35 years ago in October 1987. It was the latest development at the Gateshead shopping complex, the biggest in Europe, which had opened in two phases, the Red and Green Malls, the previous year.
The centre - the brainchild of John Hall, later to be Sir John, and his Cameron Hall company - would become “the biggest shopping and leisure complex in Europe” it was reported, providing a huge boost for an ailing region where traditional industries were dying and unemployment was rocketing. Around 6,000 jobs were expected to be created.
